Stragglers flew to their places; the impatient burst of laughter was cut short; the growing fit of rage was quelled; the uplifted hand dropped harmless by the side of its owner; merry faces grew serious, and angry ones peaceable; the eyes of all seemed poring on their books; and the extravagant uproar of the last half hour was hushed on a sudden into a diligent murmur. Those who were most proficient in the study of the Masther's' physiognomy detected in the expression of his eyes, as he entered and greeted his assistant, something of a troubled and uneasy character. He took the list with a severe countenance, from the hands of the boy above mentioned, sent all those whose names he found upon the fatal record to kneel down in a corner, until he should find leisure to 'hoise' them, and then prepared to enter upon his daily functions."

For the present, however, the delinquents are saved by the entrance of a fresh character upon the scene.

"The new-comer was a handsome young woman, who carried a pet child in her arms, and held another by the hand. The sensation of pleasure which ran among the young culprits at her appearance showed her to be their 'great Captain's Captain,' the beloved and loving helpmate of Mr. Lenigan. Casting, unperceived by her lord, an encouraging smile towards the kneeling culprits, she took an opportunity, while engaged in a wheedling conversation with her husband, to purloin his deal rule, and to blot out the list of the procribed from the slate, after which she stole out calling David to dig the potatoes for dinner."

And so, we too will leave the school.

XXXVI.

MOCK-HEROIC POETRY.

JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE.

LONG before "Beppo" the experiment of imitating the well-known Italian school, which unites so strangely the wildest romance of chivalry with pungent satire and goodhumoured pleasantry, had been successfully tried by John Hookham Frere, one of Mr. Canning's most brilliant co

adjutors in the poetry of the "Anti-Jacobin." The mockheroic in question bore the curious title of "Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work by William and Robert Whistlecroft, of Stowmarket, in Suffolk, Harness and Collar Makers. Intended to comprise the most interesting Particulars relating to King Arthur and his round table.” Two cantos were published by Mr. Murray in 1817; and a third and fourth rapidly followed. The success was decided; but the poem has been long out of print, and is now amongst the scarcest books in modern literature.

To attempt to tell the story of a poem which travels backward and forward from knights to giants and from giants to monks, no sooner interesting you in one set of personages than he casts them off to fly to other scenes and other actors, would be a fruitless task. Who would venture to trace the adventures of the Orlando Furioso? and Mr. Frere, in imitating the "Morgante Maggiore," and other parodies of the great poet of romance, has won for himself the privilege of wandering at pleasure over the whole realm of chivalrous fable, and makes the best use of that privilege by being often picturesque, often amusing, and never wearisome.

The poem opens with a feast given by King Arthur at Carlisle to his knights, who are thus described :

They looked a manly generous generation,

:

Beards, shoulders, eye-brows, broad and square and thick;
Their accents firm and loud in conversation,

Their eyes and gestures eager, sharp and quick,

Showed them prepared on proper provocation

To give the lie, pull noses, stab and kick;

And for that very reason it is said

They were so very courteous and well-bred.

Then come the giants, living in a valley near Carlisle. The description of this place affords an excellent opportunity for displaying Mr. Frere's command over a higher order of poetry.

Huge mountains of immeasurable height

Encompassed all the level valley round

With mighty slabs of rocks, that stood upright,
An insurmountable and enormous mound.

The very river vanished out of sight,
Absorbed in secret channels underground;
That vale was so sequestered and secluded

All search for ages past it had eluded.

A rock was in the centre, like a cone
Abruptly rising from a miry pool,
Where they beheld a hill of massy stone,
Whic' masons of the rude primæval school
Had reared by help of giant hands alone,
With rocky fragments unreduced by rule;
Irregular like nature more than art,
Huge, rugged, and compact in every part.

A wild tumultuous torrent raged around
Of fragments tumbling from the mountain's height;
The whistling clouds of dust, the deafening sound,
The hurried motion that amazed the sight,
The constant quaking of the solid ground,
Environed them with phantoms of affright;
Yet with heroic hearts they held right on
Till the last point of their ascent was won.

The giants who dwelt in this romantic spot had captured some ladies, whom the knights thought it their duty to deliver. They overcame the grisly warriors as a matter of course; and the state in which they find the fair prisoners is related in a stanza of which the concluding couplet bears some resemblance to a well-known transition in "Don Juan :" The ladies! They were tolerably well,

At least as well as could be well expected:
Many details I must forbear to tell,
Their toilet had been very much neglected;
But by supreme good luck it so befel

That, when the castle's capture was effected,
When those vile cannibals were overpowered
Only two fat duennas were devoured.

In the third book, according to the universal practice of the Italian poets, the story takes a backward leap, and recounts a previous feud between the giants and the inhabitants of a neighbouring monastery. A certain monk, Brother John by name, who had gone out alone to fish in a stream near the Abbey, is luckily enabled to give notice to the brethren of the approach of their enemies. The scene of his sport is finely described :

A mighty current unconfined and free,

Ran wheedling round beneath the mountain's shade,
Battering its wave-worn base; but you might see
On the near margin many a watery glade,

Becalmed beneath some little island's lee,
All tranquil and transparent, close embayed;
Reflecting in the deep serene and even

Each flower and herb, and every cloud of heaven.

The painted king-fisher, the branch above her
Hard in the steadfast mirror fixed and true;
Anon the fitful breezes brood and hover,
Freshening the surface with a rougher hue;
Spreading, withdrawing, pausing, passing over,
Again returning to retire anew:

So rest and motion in a narrow range
Feasted the sight with joyous interchange.

A stout resistance is made by the monks, and the giants at length withdraw from the scene of action :

And now the gates are open, and the throng
Forth issuing the deserted camp survey;
"Here Murdomack and Mangonel the strong
And Gorbuduc were lodged, and here," they say,
"This pigstye to Poldavy did belong;

Here Bundleback and here Phigander lay."

They view the deep indentures, broad and round,

Which mark their postures squatting on the ground.
Then to the traces of gigantic feet,

Huge, wide apart, with half a dozen toes;

They track them on till they converge and meet

(An earnest and assurance of repose)

Close at the ford. The cause of this retreat
They all conjecture, but no creature knows;
It was ascribed to causes multifarious,
To saints, to Jerome, George, and Januarius,
To their own pious founder's intercession,
To Ave-Marias and our Lady's Psalter;
To news that Friar John was in possession,
To new wax-candles placed upon the altar,

To their own prudence, valour and discretion:

To reliques, rosaries, and holy water;

To beads and psalms, and feats of arms;-in short
There was no end of their accounting for't.

In the last volume of Mr. Lockhart's "Life of Sir Walter Scott," is a very interesting account of the delight which the great minstrel took to the last in Mr. Frere's spirited versions of the old Spanish ballads. "In speaking of Mr. Frere's translations, he repeated a pretty long passage from his version of one of the romances of the Cid (published in the Appendix to Southey's Quarto), and seemed to enjoy a spirited charge of the knights therein described, as much as he could have done in his best days; placing his walkingstick in rest, like a lance, to suit the action to the word."Extract from Mrs. John Davy's Journal of Sir Walter Scott's Resilence in Malta.

The following is the passage referred to :—

The gates were then thrown open, and forth at once they rushed.
The outposts of the Moorish hosts back to the camp were pushed;
The camp was all in tumult, and there was such a thunder
Of cymbals and of drums, as if earth would cleave in sunder.
There you might see the Moors arming themselves in haste,
And the two main battles how they were forming fast,
Horsemen and footmen mixed, a countless troop and vast...
The Moors are moving forward, the battle soon must join :
My men, stand here in order, ranged upon a line!

66

Let not a man move from his rank before I give the sign."
Pero Bermuez heard the word, but he could not refrain,
He held the banner in his hand, he gave the horse the rein.
"You see yon foremost squadron there, the thickest of the foes,
Noble Cid, God be your aid, for there your banner goes!
Let him who serves and honours it show the duty that he owes."
Earnestly the Cid called out: "For Heaven's sake be still !”
Bermuez cried, "I cannot hold !" so eager was his will.

He spurred his horse and drove him on amid the Moorish rout;
They strove to win the banner, and compassed him about.
Had not his armour been so true, he had lost either life or limb;
The Cid called out again: "For Heaven's sake succour him!”
Their shields before their breasts forth at once they go,

Their lances in the rest levelled fair and low,
Their heads all stooping down towards the saddle-bow.
The Cid was in the midst, his shout was heard afar,
"I am Ruy Diaz, the champion of Bivar!

Strike among them, gentlemen, for sweet Mercy's sake!'
Then where Bermuez fought amidst the foe they brake;
Three hundred bannered knights, it was a gallant show,
Three hundred Moors they killed, a man at every blow!
When they wheeled and turned, as many more lay slain,
You might see them raise their lances, and level them again,
There you might see the breast plates, how they were cleft in twain,
And many a Moorish shield lie scattered on the plain,
The pennons that were white marked with a crimson stain,
The horses running wild whose riders had been slain.

Mr. Frere's familiarity with Spanish literature probably took its rise from his employment in various diplomatic missions during the Peninsular war; but his great achievement as a translator is of a far higher and more difficult order. The following specimen of his version of "The Frogs" of Aristophanes will show how completely he has contrived to naturalise the wit and humour of the old Athenian dramatist. The passage about "full and equal franchise" might pass for a translation from half a dozen modern languages at the present hour :